“Do you know what the judgment day is, Puro?”
“Āvo, rya. The judgment day is when you soves alay (go in sleep, or dream away) to the boro Duvel.”
I reflected long on this reply of the untutored Rommany. I had often thought that the deepest and most beautiful phrase in all Tennyson’s poems was that in which the impassioned lover promised his mistress to love her after death, ever on “into the dream beyond.” And here I had the same thought as beautifully expressed by an old Gipsy, who, he declared, for two months hadn’t seen three nights when he wasn’t as drunk as four fiddlers. And the same might have been said of Carolan, the Irish bard, who lived in poetry and died in whisky.
The soul sleeping or dreaming away to God suggested an inquiry into the Gipsy idea of the nature of spirits.
“You believe in mullos (ghosts), Puro. Can everybody see them, I wonder?”
“Āvo, rya, āvo. Every mush can dick mullos if it’s their cāmmoben to be dickdus. But ’dusta critters can dick mullos whether the mullos kaum it or kek. There’s grais an’ mylas can dick mullos by the rātti; an’ yeckorus I had a grai that was trasher ’drée a tem langs the rikkorus of a drum, pāsh a boro park where a mush had been mullered. He prastered a mee pauli, but pāsh a cheirus he welled apopli to the wardos. A chinned jucko or a wixen can hunt mullos. Āvali, they chase sperits just the sim as anything ’drée the world—dan’r ’em, koor ’em, chinger ’em—’cause the dogs can’t be dukkered by mullos.”
In English: “Yes, sir, yes. Every man can see ghosts if it is their will to be seen. But many creatures can see ghosts whether the ghosts wish it or not. There are horses and asses (which) can see ghosts by the night; and once I had a horse that was frightened in a place by the side of a road, near a great park where a man had been murdered. He ran a mile behind, but after a while came back to the waggons. A cut (castrated) dog or a vixen can hunt ghosts. Yes, they chase spirits just the same as anything in the world—bite ’em, fight ’em, tear ’em—because dogs cannot be hurt by ghosts.”
“Dogs,” I replied, “sometimes hunt men as well as ghosts.”
“Āvo; but men can fool the juckals avree, and men too, and mullos can’t.”
“How do they kair it?”